The present invention relates to lift gas control systems of airships and, more particularly, to a gas density control system embodying a ballonet and low pressure gas storage tank combination to regulate the density and volume of the airship lift gas.
A ballonet is a balloon inside an envelope of an airship. When the ballonet is filled with lighter-than-air lift gas the airship will achieve a lifting force. All modern airships are equipped with a lift gas volume or density control system to monitor and maintain the payload lifting capacity of the airships lighter-than-air gas envelope. Maintaining quick precise control of the lifting forces of the lighter-than-air gases within an airship's lifting gas envelope is critical to its safe operation in all flight modes. Currently available lift gas control systems are extremely complicated to operate because they require complex gas manifolds, high pressure tanks, pumps, and complex electronic control systems as well as time to manage the weight and balance of the lift gas and ballast.
As can be seen, there is a need for a gas density control system embodying a ballonet attached along a rotatable low pressure gas storage tank to regulate the density and volume of the airship lift gas through wrapping and unwrapping the ballonet about the rotating gas storage tank, selectively moving volumes of lift gas from storage to lift envelope or lift envelope to storage quickly and safely, while driven by the one motor. Thereby, the present invention safely trims and regulates the lifting capacity of the airship through all flight modes without the use of complicated gas manifolds and heavy pumps or high pressure valves, and without the necessity for dumping any valuable gases.